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Wednesday, November 21, 2012

Knot

"And
There's that damned knot again"

And
there's that damned

Knot
again

Swinging
in my chest

A
hangman's noose

Strangling
me slowly

From
within

Space
open under my feet

I
pulled my lever

Your
trapdoor released

Here
I am

My
life dancing

At
the end of that damned knot

Again

Chris
McQueeney 11/16/12

Tomorrow will be Thanksgiving for those of us on this side of the pond. To some the holidays are a very stressful time...I think there are many reasons for that. For me they are a time to be enjoyed. I get to see my family, or at least a good portion of them.

A good portion of my adult life I dreaded the family gatherings. I wasn't sober and would have to go around people that most definitely were. I remember not being able to look people in the eye, and coming up with some diversion to get the attention off of me.

Fifteen years ago today I was sitting in the Depaul long term treatment center for my drug addiction...and again I was dreading Thanksgiving. I was sober, and the most sane I had been for eight years, and my family was coming to see me. For the first time in my life I was truly ashamed, actually it was the first time I was truly ashamed and sober at the same time.

Looking back now, fifteen years later, I can see that that was the first holiday in over eight years that I had nothing to be ashamed about. Yes I was in a treatment center, and yes I went to sleep there every night to the sounds of cockroaches running in the walls, but I was sober.

That was the first time in a long time that I was able to look my father in the eye...sitting in a shithole cafeteria, in a shithole building in downtown Portland Oregon, eating food that was mostly donated by local food banks.

I am grateful for that day...that was the only sober Thanksgiving that I ever got to spend with my father. Enjoy the holidays, enjoy your families; Years from now those memories may be some of the best of your lives

Happy Thanksgiving to all of My American friends, and to the not so American ones as well.

I remember so many years without family, without a home to call my own. The holidays without sobriety were definitely desperate times. Here's to spending a day filled with 'not remorse' but joy at how far we've come. (Hugs) Indy